Chapter Two
The emergencyroom had an unexpectedly high number of patients during the night. In other words, chaos reigned. Dr. Quinn Orson found herself looking outside a once or twice just to make sure there wasn’t a full moon. The lunar cycle wasn’t just hell on shifters. The human population went nuts during certain days of the month as well.
Damn. Even her bear felt restless.Whoa, girl. You can get your roar on later.There was no rhyme or reason for the craziness, but Quinn was glad for the distraction. At the end of the shift in the morning, she would head out to see Gerri Wilder, shifter matchmaker, and supposed miracle worker. Quinn needed a miracle. Either she mated in the next two weeks, or she handed over her family’s ruling legacy of the bear clan over to that asshole Trey Steele. Quinn could only hope Ms. Wilder matched her with a bear that was, at the very least, kind and loyal. Handsome wouldn’t hurt, either, but it wasn’t a requirement.
Most the bear clans in the surrounding area knew about Quinn’s “predicament, ” and several had made offers of potential mates, but Quinn had been determined to find a work-around. She’d really believed she could find a legal way to keep her father’s property and money, even if she had to give up the clan. That was the crux of the problem: if she didn’t mate then everything her family owned would be inherited by Trey—and her mom and sisters would be banished.
Oh, Dad.Quinn swallowed the lump in her throat. How could a car accident take away the best man she’d ever known? As the Orsino bear clan chief, Santos Orson’s progressive ideas and charismatic demeanor had led to real changes in the way the clan viewed its female members. Recently, Dad had challenged the clan’s archaic rules about only allowing male heirs to rule. After all, he had three daughters that he’d raised to be independent and free-thinking. Why should having ovaries prevent a woman from leading the clan?
If only the clan could accept a female chief. But no, the rules were still antiquated and outdated. She’d been the chief resident during her senior year of med school and had been promoted to ER attending for the past five years, which entailed running a staff of thirty-five nurses, lab techs, aides, and doctors. Controlling the chaos of a busy hospital had adequately prepared her to govern a small bear clan.
“GSW to the chest coming in hot,” said Adam, the nursing supervisor and Quinn’s go-to, as he hung up the phone at the intake desk. “He’s lost a lot of blood, they had to perform CPR in the field, and his vitals are unstable.”
Shit. “What happened?”
“They didn’t give me the rundown, Doc.” Adam shrugged. “But it’s bad enough to take down a bear shifter.”
Adam Fields was human, but he knew Quinn was also a bear shifter. He also knew that the area was the Orsino clan territory. It was likely she knew the victim. “Who?”
“A guy named Brandon Bennet.”
A small noise of surprise escaped her throat. “I’ve got this one,” Quinn said to Michael Rawlings, a human doctor on duty with her.
“You know him?” he asked.
“Yes. He’s in my clan.” She’d heard Brandon and his sister Marigold had taken jobs with a security company, but what the hell had led him to getting shot? Her first instinct was to call Monica. Her sister had been madly in lust with the kid since they were teenagers. She looked at Adam. “How long out?”
“Any minute now.”
Calling Monica would have to wait. “Make sure Trauma B is open.”
“We have a cardiac patient in there--”
“If he isn’t dying right now get him out of the room,” Quinn snapped. “B is best equipped to deal with a gunshot, and if I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure Brandon survives tonight. Do you understand, Nurse Fields?”
“Yes, Doctor Orson.” Adam took off in a jog toward the trauma bay.
Quinn looked down at her hands. Brown fur had sprouted over her arms and hands. “Crap.” She shook herself, pushing her bear down. She was Doctor Orson right now, not Quinn Orson, Ursula to the Orsino Clan. It would be her human training she needed, not raw instinct.
“I’m going to wait by the bay doors,” she said.
Inside the waiting room, most the chairs were full of patients waiting to be admitted. None of them were as urgent as a gunshot wound, or Lacy, the receptionist, would have sent them back already. Quinn smelled blood and vomit, but both were faint, probably lingering from earlier patients. She saw a small girl clinging to her mother, and sweat beaded on her brow, and her blonde hair matted and unkempt. Her eyes were red and vacant as she watched Quinn cross to the entrance.
She walked over to admit. “Get that girl in next to see Rawlings.”
Lacy, a middle-aged redhead with no sense of humor, gave Quinn a tight-lipped nod.
The sliding doors swished open, and Quinn absently tugged at her white coat. Two paramedics came through with an oversized gurney. They’d strapped Brandon down at the legs, waist, and shoulders. They had a bag of Ringer’s Lactate hanging from the IV hook, and a line running into his forearm. One of the Paramedics used his gloved hands to hold a wad of bandages down onto Brandon’s chest. The normally white gauze was dark red with the shifter’s blood.
She raced to the gurney. “I got this,” Quinn told the medic, shoving him aside.
Marigold came in immediately after them, along with three tall, broadly built men that Quinn had never seen before.
Marigold, a tall and muscular woman, a distinct contrast to Quinn, appeared small as her fear for her brother was reflected not only in her face but also her body language.
“I’ll take care of him,” Quinn said to her clan member. “I promise.”
She spared a passing glance to the three men surrounding Marigold, her stomach aching as the one in the middle, a man over six feet and a half tall, a mop of dirty blond curls and a short beard, drew Marigold into his arms while Quinn and the medics rushed away with Brandon. His blue eyes stared through Quinn as if exacting a promise, and she squirmed under his gaze.
